


Into Thin Air

by flecksofpoppy



Series: Poppy's Adventures in Night Ficcing [5]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Canon Era, M/M, POV Second Person, Past Relationship(s), Post-Canon, Tumblr Ask Box Fic, Tumblr Memes, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-17
Updated: 2015-07-17
Packaged: 2018-04-09 20:27:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4363073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flecksofpoppy/pseuds/flecksofpoppy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You expect the air to be thin in times like these–a reason for why it’s so hard to breathe.</p><p>(Smushed together into the same universe. Send me a ship and I'll write a ficlet tumblr meme: "Jeanmarco - things you said with too many miles between us" and "Jearmin - things you said with no space between us")</p>
            </blockquote>





	Into Thin Air

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blushyfaces](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blushyfaces/gifts).



You expect the air to be thin in times like these—a reason for why it’s so hard to breathe. Between the screams, smoke, and smell of blood, you choke on your own fear, standing on the precipice of a roof with broken tiles and watch bone crack. Your hands tremble; you resent yourself.

But once you move, once you leap, you can’t think anymore. You can’t smell, can’t taste—only move forward—until the stench of gun smoke assaults you again like waking up from a surreal daydream as you hit a floor. You want to punch, to draw blood at the quartermasters who gave into the indulgence of abandonment that you did not; Marco holds you back.

You’re not thinking of kissing as you refill your gas tanks–not really, even though you’re talking to the only person you’ve ever shared one with. You’re not even thinking of Marco’s words so much as trying to withhold your thoughts, to keep calm as he says you’re a leader. Doesn’t he know that this isn’t the time for his probing words? For that thing he sees in you, has saw in you from the moment he first reprimanded you? From the moment you first became friends?

You’re not thinking of kissing because this is no longer about childhood or fumbling under blankets in the barracks; this is about leaping, leaving the dead behind.

Later, you have time to breathe, but suddenly no air. Amidst a collection of broken bodies frozen inside crystalline globs of regurgitated waste, you do think of it—kissing, small touches—until you see him there against the building.

And even through fire, through the burn of tears and combustion of childhood, you know he’ll never stop speaking to you, despite the miles between.

= = =

It’s been years since Armin held you—unconscious and wounded in so many ways—as blood trickled from your nose, a single blade already dulled by fighting the only thing protecting you both from voracious Titans.

Re-telling the story later, he always joked about how heavy you were.

He joked about that moment as he'd nudged your shoulder, directing you to roll off of him so he could breathe again. As you’d settled to the side, the only sounds in the room were of Armin's even _inhale-exhale_ and the squeak of the mattress as summer night air wafted in through a window.

“You were completely helpless,” he’d observed, lying on his back and not looking at you, completely un-self-conscious about his own nudity.

“I was a kid,” you’d grunted, just as embarrassed at nineteen as you would’ve been at fifteen, pulling the sheets up to your waist.

He fucked you twice more before that night ended.

Now, with each passing year, you begin to realize the only time he’s completely candid is in bed with you—confessing what resides in his mind—a very deep and sometimes dark place.

Sometimes, you just lie together for the sake of skin, for the softness of quietude that doesn’t exist outside the walls, both figuratively and literally.

He murmurs his fears against your lips, talks about things he shouldn’t—Eren, Mikasa, his own nightmares—says things when there is no air between you.

And yet, you are somehow able to breathe.


End file.
